News

Architecture graduate featured in 2009 Design Now! Exhibition

13 May 2009

Alex Nicholls, a graduate of the Masters of Architecture at the University of Sydney, is a finalist in Object Gallery's Design Now! exhibition, which will run in both Sydney and Melbourne throughout 2009.

The annual exhibition honours the year's most outstanding contributions from design graduates across Australia. Alex was selected as a finalist in Design for the Built Environment, one of six categories. The other categories are Design for Studio Production, Design for Industry, Design for the Body, Design for Communication, and Design for the Home.

This year there were more than 200 nominees for Design Now!, all recommended by their university heads of department or lecturers. Of the nominees, eighteen finalists were chosen - the three most outstanding graduates in each of the six categories. All of the finalists will have their work shown in the exhibition.

Alex says he is "really stoked" to be nominated for Design Now!, and to have his work exhibited at Sydney's Object Gallery as well as Melbourne Museum.

"It's great to be involved in such a multi-disciplinary show that has some of the best graduating students from all over Australia exhibiting," says Alex. "I will be interested to see how the different design fields correlate, and I look forward to seeing the broad scope of works. It should be a good experience to exhibit at such high profile venues."

Alex says his architectural design, 'Maritime Museum, Cockatoo Island', was inspired by the brief and the site.

"The brief called for a building that revered the boat and created the best environment to view the form of the hull in the context of Sydney Harbour. The site was also very inspirational: its rich history, the decaying industrial and colonial architecture, the island's ghostly qualities, the lack of people, the rust, the rubble, the paint peeling, the scale of some of the abandoned structures, as well as the harbour, the water, the foreshore, the cliffs and the strong maritime history."

Design Now! is an important platform for young, emerging designers, because it is Australia's only touring exhibition of student design. Since it began in 2001, the exhibition has showcased the work of more than 100 graduates from twenty-one universities.

The Design Now! exhibition will run until 21 June at Object Gallery, and from 14 August until 25 October at Melbourne Museum.